Ah, you leave us with a cliffhanger! Can't wait for your next post! I've heard it translated as "sin must be," but that's very like your "sin is inevitable" which is a far cry from sin somehow being fitting. In my thinking, maybe sin is fitting because God wanted bold companions, some of whom wouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. God wanted super creative companions who would try stuff without being so afraid of unforeseen consequence that they would be paralyzed.
If you read Julian of Norwich without grounding her words in the radical context in which they were spoken—a woman facing death, enduring pain, writing in Middle English as she attempts to describe mystical experience—you will misread her.
Her claim that “sin is behovely” is not a systematic theological proposition. It’s a confession of insight from someone navigating visions at the edge of death, searching for language to reconcile divine love with human suffering.
We flatten her when we read her as a modern commentator, a spiritual meme, or a theological provocateur. She wasn’t trying to be any of those things. She was trying to make sense of what she saw in prayer.
Her voice is extraordinary not because it simplifies mystery, but because it dares to speak from within it.
Perhaps these sayings can shed some light on what St Julian means:
"The devil does not tempt us only with sins. He tempts us with virtues even more than with sins… Because he knows that if we succeed in all of this, we will become proud and lose everything. We must master the one virtue he does not have: humility." --Elder Nikon of the Holy Mountain
~~and~~
"I know that God is not the author of sin, but, I suspect that sometimes we are 'allowed' to fall in order to prevent us from trying to live without God. Living without God, when your life is more or less 'moral,' is a great delusion." --Fr Stephen Freeman
I grew up hearing the adults around me saying "It behoved me to..." always in response to a situation, or what someone said or did, that was considered to be incompete or inappropriate. Could there be a hint of an answer there?
(By the way, where I grew up the proper pronunciation is "beewhoo-ved")
The Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is a feminine noun. When Jesus was describing the Holy Spirit, He wasn't speaking in koine Greek. So isn't it within reason to ascribe feminine pronouns to the Spirit?
The cliff hanger is diabolical.
Ah, you leave us with a cliffhanger! Can't wait for your next post! I've heard it translated as "sin must be," but that's very like your "sin is inevitable" which is a far cry from sin somehow being fitting. In my thinking, maybe sin is fitting because God wanted bold companions, some of whom wouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. God wanted super creative companions who would try stuff without being so afraid of unforeseen consequence that they would be paralyzed.
If you read Julian of Norwich without grounding her words in the radical context in which they were spoken—a woman facing death, enduring pain, writing in Middle English as she attempts to describe mystical experience—you will misread her.
Her claim that “sin is behovely” is not a systematic theological proposition. It’s a confession of insight from someone navigating visions at the edge of death, searching for language to reconcile divine love with human suffering.
We flatten her when we read her as a modern commentator, a spiritual meme, or a theological provocateur. She wasn’t trying to be any of those things. She was trying to make sense of what she saw in prayer.
Her voice is extraordinary not because it simplifies mystery, but because it dares to speak from within it.
Perhaps these sayings can shed some light on what St Julian means:
"The devil does not tempt us only with sins. He tempts us with virtues even more than with sins… Because he knows that if we succeed in all of this, we will become proud and lose everything. We must master the one virtue he does not have: humility." --Elder Nikon of the Holy Mountain
~~and~~
"I know that God is not the author of sin, but, I suspect that sometimes we are 'allowed' to fall in order to prevent us from trying to live without God. Living without God, when your life is more or less 'moral,' is a great delusion." --Fr Stephen Freeman
I grew up hearing the adults around me saying "It behoved me to..." always in response to a situation, or what someone said or did, that was considered to be incompete or inappropriate. Could there be a hint of an answer there?
(By the way, where I grew up the proper pronunciation is "beewhoo-ved")
The Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is a feminine noun. When Jesus was describing the Holy Spirit, He wasn't speaking in koine Greek. So isn't it within reason to ascribe feminine pronouns to the Spirit?